‘Can Do’ It

We proved Dorset ‘Can Do’ it – we won a top national recycling award for our county-wide recycle your aerosols campaign, which ran during the summer.

This was a joint campaign with other Dorset councils to encourage more aerosols recycling. It was designed to highlight that empty deodorant, hair spray, air freshener and furniture polish aerosols can all by recycled as part of your kerbside recycling collections. You can also take them to our mini can recycling banks, which are often located in supermarket car parks.

The Awards presentation recently took place in Christchurch, where the Director of British Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association (BAMA), Sue Rogers, presented local dignitaries with the covetable prize – a £1,200 changeable graphic advertising display system for a recycling vehicle. An engraved trophy and framed certificates were also presented.

Can it

We challenged visitors to our recycling stand at the Shaftesbury and Gillingham Show, Melplash Show and The County Show to take part in our ‘Guess how many cans are in a bale’ competition. This was part of our campaign to highlight that aerosols – like empty deodorant, hair spray, air freshener, and furniture polish cans – can be recycled via your kerbside recycling service. They can also be recycled at can banks in supermarket car parks and other locations, and taken to our household recycling centres.

More than 700 people entered our competition, with 230 guessing correctly. There were actually 636 crushed cans in this bale.

After you recycle your cans, they are taken to a materials recycling facility in either Hurn, near Christchurch or the Hybris Business Park in Crossways, where they are separated into aluminium and steel.

They are then crushed and baled up ready to be sent to factories and made into new products – aluminium cans are usually reprocessed into more cans. The great thing about aluminium and steel cans is that they can be recycled time and again without loss of quality, which is great for our environment.

Don’t forget to recycle your empty aerosols!

We thought we’d share some of the great photos taken at the launch of our recycle your aerosols campaign in Weymouth yesterday (22 June 2011). Having a refuse collection vehicle promoting the campaign, ably assisted by Sammie Strawberry, drew lots of attention from shoppers and our recycling officers spoke to more than 100 people about recycling aerosols  as part of their existing kerbside collection service.

Did you know a wide range of aerosols can be recycled including hair spray cans, shaving gels, squirty cream and kitchen cleaning foams. Find out more here.

We will be holding roadshows across the county throughout the summer, so keep checking our events page to find your nearest.

Aerosol recycling? No sweat!

Has your deodorant run out of spray or your furniture polish lost its shine?

This Recycle Now Week (20-26 June 2011), we’ve teamed up with recycling initiative Aerofoil to show how easy it is to recycle aerosols.

A new campaign is being launched at a series of themed roadshows across Dorset, which aim to highlight that aerosols like empty deodorant, hair spray, air freshener and furniture polish cans can all be recycled as part of your kerbside collection. Roadshow visitors will also have the chance to win £25 of Amazon vouchers for guessing how many cans are in a bale.

A launch event is taking place in New Bond Street, Weymouth on Tuesday (21 June) from 10am to 2pm and will feature a giant inflatable aerosol and recycling mascot Sammie Strawberry – so come along and see us.

More roadshows are taking place at:

• 20 June – Christchurch Market – 8.30am – 12 noon
• 22 June – Dorchester Market, South Street- 8.30am – 2pm
• 24 June - Penny’s Walk, Ferndown – 10am – 2pm
• 15 July – Sherborne Farmers Market, Cheap Street – 9am – 2pm
• 17 July – WarehamCarnival – 2pm – 6pm

For more information see our web page.